Installing IDLE on a Chromebook

If you haven’t set up your local Linux environment on your Chromebook yet, please read the Programming Locally on a Chromebook article first.

Choosing a Code Editor

Depending on your project, you may be using IDLE, VS Code, or Jupyter Notebooks. We’ll explain how to install IDLE in this article.

IDLE

1. We will install IDLE using our terminal. We can do this with the command sudo apt-get install.

For Python 3:

yourusername@penguin:~$ sudo apt-get install idle3

For Python 2:

yourusername@penguin:~$ sudo apt-get install idle

1. The command will ask you Do you want to continue? [Y/n]. You can type “y” and press enter to continue the installation. If you’re worried you don’t have enough room on your Chromebook for the installation, go through and delete extra images or applications you no longer need.

...
Need to get 2,160 kB of archives.
After this operation, 10.3MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

1. Once the installation completes, open your search and search for “idle”. If you’re using Python 3, open the version of IDLE that has “3.X” next to it. If you’re using Python 2, open the version simply labeled “IDLE”.
2. It’ll open the Python shell first, so we’ll want to open a new file. Do this by opening the “File” menu and clicking “New File”.
3. Add a print() statement to your new file so we can test it.
4. Now, in the new file window, open the “Run” menu and click “Run Module”.
5. If you’re prompted to save the file, click “Okay” and give your file a name.
6. Your python program will output in your shell!

Programming Locally

While there are some limitations to programming locally on your Chromebook, you can still program in many languages.

The following articles will help you set up a specific language or tool on your Chromebook:

• Programming in Python on a Chromebook
• Installing Jupyter Notebook on a Chromebook
• Web Programming on a Chromebook